1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to a system and its methods for a trusted third party clearing house to track statuses of leads generated and sold to commercial lead consumers.
2. Related Art
Before the Internet, advertisers sought to generate leads through the use of junk mail, or the collection of contact information from those who enter to win something free, like a car or a vacation. Additionally, there was the use of referral-based lead calling.
Since the establishment of the Internet, advertising models have consisted primarily of tracking impressions and clicks, which has been the predominate method for obtaining Internet traffic, e.g. with use of banner or search advertising. For instance, in traditional advertising business, advertisers have been using models such as Cost Per Impression (CPM) or Cost Per Click (CPC) as a means to generate traffic and encourage Internet (or web) users to connect to websites of a vendor. Spam e-mail and other forms of advertising have also been developed to entice consumers with free or reduced cost goods or services as a way to get more consumers to reach a vendor's website.
Once at a vendor website, the Internet user performs a transaction that is deemed the main purpose for the business of the website, such as supplying the details of a credit card application, signing up for a free newsletter, or some other similar activity. Private information of the Internet user may be gathered by the vendor or advertiser (which can be the same entity) and sold to a commercial consumer of leads, usually a consumer in the business related to the purpose of the consumer's visit to the vendor's website.